I just heard on the radio that there was typhoon that hit the island of Guam, and 2,000 homes were destroyed. The radio reporter said they were flying in a hospital to the island, because the Guam Memorial Hospital is not functioning. This sounds bad.

The noisy upstairs neighbours are driving me crazy. Last night they came and stomped about in their shoes. I ended up hitting my ceiling with the broomstick to tell them to quiet down, but of course they didn't. I hate my apartment, and it's freaking me out. I need the place where I live to feel safe and secure, and they've completely destroyed it for me.

For the first time ever, I don't even feel like buying a tree for Christmas. I usually buy a tree, decorate it, and even put up colourful Christmas lights. But I'm so upset about hating my life and apartment right now, that I can't do it.

I remember visiting a friend's apartment, and it was undecorated. My friend said the apartment didn't feel like home to her, so she didn't feel like putting up pictures or investing money to make it look better. At the time, I didn't understand her feelings. Now I do. Why should I spend the money to buy a tree, and put up Christmas lights, which are a big in the wazoo to hang anyway, when I don't feel like happy in my apartment, and it's not the sanctuary from the world I thought it was.

I won't pull a total Scrooge for Christmas. I always buy a couple of poinsettias anyway, and they're festive enough. I decided not to even give gifts to my building manager and building owners, which I've done every year since I moved in. I complained about the people upstairs being noisy, and nothing has changed. They probably wouldn't even notice or care that they don't get a present from me or not.

God, I'm in such a bad mood. I need the place where I live to feel safe, secure and like a sanctuary, and now it's turned into one humongous hell hole. I'd love to move, but things are still unstable at work. Rumors are going around that they might close the office. I'll be okay financially, but only if I can keep paying the same amount for rent.

I used to be afraid of getting laid off, but with unemployment and at least three months of severance and my vacation pay, if I got laid off in March 2003 (which is the month the rumor mongers are saying the office will close) I could afford to stay home and not work till 2004. The last time the company laid people off, they gave everyone three months severance. I hope they do the same if they close my office. The economy in the SF Bay Area is so bad right now, I might not have a choice but to stay home and be unemployed. At least I'll be able to afford it. I mean, I'll have to lead this incredibly frugal, cheap and budget driven life, but at least I'll be to do it. It's my one and only bright spot in these uncertain times.

I've never not worked. The most I've ever gone without working is six weeks, at least since I've been on my own, and I spent those six weeks on vacation. I was in Hawaii for two weeks, and then I flew to Bali for a month. I'm glad of glad I made my Bali trip when I did. I would be afraid to travel there now, because of the recent terrorist bombing and all of their civil unrest. Bali was such peaceful country when I was there; there was no violence whatsoever. Now that's all changed, just like my living situation.

I guess it's not going to be that much of merry Christmas for me.

I found this on a site I visit every day. It's very funny.

A few observations on newspapers:

1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.

2. The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the country.

3. The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the country.

4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don't really understand the Washington Post. They do, however, like their statistics shown in pie charts.

5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running the country, if they could spare the time, and if they didn't have to leave LA to do it.

6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country and they did a far superior job of it, thank you very much.

7. The New York Daily News is read by people who aren't too sure who's running the country, and don't really care as long as they can get a seat on the train.

8. The New York Post is read by people who don't care who's running the country, as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated.

9. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure there is a country or that anyone is running it; but whoever it is, they oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are handicapped minority feminist atheist dwarfs, who also happen to be illegal aliens from ANY country or galaxy as long as they are Democrats.

10. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country but need the baseball scores.

11. The National Enquirer is read by people trapped in line at the grocery store.

Let's see. I read the SF Chronicle, it's the local paper, the New York Times, The LA Times and sometimes The Washington Post. So what does that make me?

I'm debating whether to buy those Lands' End size 10 pants. I hate the way my pants look. The butt part does not fit at all, and they look so baggy. If they don't fit in four or five months, then I'll just have to buy more pants.

I'm trying to hold off buying clothes until I decide to stop losing weight, but it's hard with everything I own starting to look too big and baggy on me. The extra large clothes I own are just hanging on me.

I may go through my closet and get rid of everything that's too big, too old, and I don't totally love. I could donate the clothes to charity for the tax deduction.

Part of me wants to hold on to my big clothes, just in case the weight come back, but I'm determined that the weight will never come back. I just don't know what size I'll eventually end up being, but it will definitely never be an extra large.

Size 10 or 8 wouldn't be too bad. I could live with either size.

A rabbi from an adult jewish learning programs website down the Peninsula came across my blog rants about Rainbow Grocery on Google. He thanked me, and then asked if he could pass it on for others to read. I'm not sure what rant of mine he was referring to, but I told him feel free to pass it along. I'm flattered that he found one of my posts worthy of passing on to someone, and of course, so touched that he thanked me for what I wrote. A rabbi too, how flattering is that!

Of course now I'm like panicing, because I'm like such a bad editor of my own posts. I hope if he finds grammatical errors, he fixes them before he passes my posts on.