I had a good night last night. I started a new fictional short story tentatively titled "Spooning with My Mother". This story will be about a divorced mother with a 13 year old daugher, who spooned with her own mother at that age. Some of my friends from divorced families have gone through this experience with their mom, and it has always fascinated and at the same time repulsed me. I've never spooned with my mom, and I can't imagine ever doing so either. That sounds bad I know, because all human beings need comfort I guess, but it just sounds so odd to me. My family is also not demonstrative physically, so my mother hugging me is a strange thing. I guess one day I'll write a story about finding it strange to be hugged by your own mom. It's not like my mom never hugged me, because she did when I was little, but when I entered school all that physical type of affection stopped.

I wrote 1,100 words of my story, which is so cool. I'd like to write 1,000 words a day, so last night was definitely a good beginning.

Then I worked out for 40 minutes or the equivalent of about two miles, something I stopped doing for about three weeks. I'm starting again only because it helps me to sleep at night if I work out before I go to bed, and I kind of missed doing it. I walk four miles a day, you'd think that would be enough to tucker me out, but obviously not.

Then I started on my new book, "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe.

I'm also gave myself half an hour of spiritual/religious time, where I pray or meditate or read spiritual/religious type books. It's a practice I got into when I was 23, and it really helps me to stay calm and be in a good mood. I used to be regular with this habit for years, then I got out of it, and now I do it off and on. I'd like to get back into doing it every night. It seems a good habit to start up again in these uncertain times.

And then I went to bed, and that's my way too boring life.

Just by chance I checked the size limiit for my blog, and in both August and September, my blogs were over 100 mb. That's a lot of posts. I am so over my limit, and if you go over the 100 MB limit, blogger charges you $3.

I've been wondering why these past two months, I didn't have the energy to write. Well, there's my answer. I'm blogging way too much. I hate to think that my creative energy is limited, but I guess it must be. I work a full time job, and I have only so much energy to devote to my writing. The two months of 100 mb blogging led me to my first published piece in a major US newspaper, so it can't be all that bad.

With that said, I will not be posting as much or perhaps just posting shorter entries. If left to my own devices, I could blither and blather on about an any number of topics for pages on end. I really am that opinionated and judgmental about life, I'm afraid.

I'm trying to look at the positive aspect of this whole thing. Keeping my blog to under 100 mb forces me to post only those thoughts which absolutely have to be posted, and not just every single thought that pops into my head. This new stricture will help me to learn to be succinct, to the point and direct. Not an easy task, as I'm sure you've noticed.

I think I can still post every day. I'll just have to make shorter posts. And it's not even the $3 that's upsetting me, because that's a small amount. It's the thought that my creative energy is going into my on line journal, and not my stories, my screenplays or my novels. Although I do so love my blog, it's my creative that I think I really love and therefore should command the majority of time and energy.

So here's to shorter and more succinct, to the point, and direct posts.

I wonder how this shipping strike will affect our economy. I remember the fear of shipping strikes while growing up in Hawaii, where practically everything you use has arrive on ship. My parents would stock up on toilet paper and other essentials, at the news of any potential shipping stirke.

I should probably call my mom, and remind her to stock up on essentials before the stores run out of stuff. I've been thinking if things get really bad, I can mail her stuff like toilet paper and whatever else she needs from here.

I think the Pacific Maritime Association and the shippers are being very short sighted in locking out the union dock workers. They are the ones that will suffer in the long run, when business look for other alternatives to shipping. Don't these people know that the economy is really bad right now and that their actions will only exacerbate our financial problems?

The Dow is down really low today. I've seen graphs that say if you pay attention to economic cycles, the Dow should drop down even further. A news report on the radio just said that the Dow had the worst quarter since 1987. I know people who lost fortunes in the stock market crash of the late 1980's. Things feel sometimes like they are going from bad to worse economically. This shipping strike so does not help anyone, except people who are interested in break the power of the unions. The Pacific Maritime Association, what is that old saying, is cutting off their nose to spite their enemy, or something like that. And the only victims in their war, is of course, the american consumer.

A friend of mine asked me over the weekend, if there will ever come a time when Americans will ever feel safe again from terrorists attacks. I told him NO. We will never ever feel safe from terrorists attacks. The US had been lucky prior to 9/11, that's all. The rest of the world was used to having their countries attacked by terrorists, and they've lived with it longer than we have. A month after I visited London, there was a terrorist car bombing on the street that I walked to get from the subway station to my hotel. Londoners are used to the fear of terrorist bombs. People who live is Israel are used to it too. To some extent, although it's been almost 40 years, people in Hawaii are used to being bombed and I was definitely taught to expect to be bombed at some point in the future.

The people who grew up in the cold war were used to the threat of a nuclear attack and built bomb shelters in their backyards. I don't think we are very far from cold war behaviour.

It's scary to think that one day I'll wake up to another terrorist attack, not on the far away east coast, but here in beautiful and sunny California. I know we are living in a changed world since 9/11, and I am only just beginning to get it. Whether the US attacks Iraq or not, the terrorists attacks will still continue. Not going to Iraq may delay the attacks, but they will come nonetheless. And if the US and the UK do attack Iraq, I expect that the terrorist bombings will begin again and continue with alarming frequency. I feel we are a sitting duck, either way we go. And I hate and fear this thought.