On my news site searches, I came across articles on the Norwalk virus. As I was reading the symptoms, I realized that I may have it. I ate at an indian food buffet on Saturday. Since Monday night, I've had the worse runs. It's horrible. Every time I eat something, it just goes right through me. My stomach has been all crampy, and I've been passing gas like anything. GROSS! It's a good thing I don't live with anyone. How embarrassing to be passing gas all night long.

The virus is supposed to only last from 24-60 hours, so by tomorrow it should be gone. At work today, I got all hot and fevery as well, and I think I had a low grade temperature.

Now I'm like freaking out and never eating at a buffet again. You just can't trust the cleanliness of your fellow diners, and although my symptoms were mild, I definitely don't want to go through this again.

I'm looking at three apartments starting on Friday. One in the neighborhood, which isn't ideal, but I'm very curious about, and two on Saturday. None of them are really ideal actually, at least not on paper, but doesn't hurt to see what's out there. It's like job hunting. When I was job hunting, I interviewed a lot at jobs I didn't want, just for interview practice. My last three jobs were places I'd gone to just to practice interviewing, so I know I should be open and look at all vacant apartments out there.

I told my rock star drummer friend K I wanted to move, and he warned me not too. He said that because the economy is so bad right, and so many people are being laid off, there'll be a glut of apartments on the market cheaper than the ones I'm seeing now. Then on the radio today I heard the head of a San Francisco church that gives grocery bags out to poor people say, that he's never seen lines of people needing free food like this in 40 years, and most of the people are young too.

My rock star drummer friend says that if I get laid off suddenly and I move, I'll be stuck paying higher rent, which would be a dumb idea. He's probably right, but I just can't stand my place anymore. The people upstairs were deliberately stomping above after 10 pm at night. God, they are so rude. And I'm evil as well, and just turn up my stereo since sound travels up. That's how bad it's gotten. And what's laughable is that the whole sound problem could be solved if the people upstairs just bought an area rug. Maybe they like the hardwood floors, maybe they're just plain rude and stupid and unaware that someone lives below them and I can hear every footstep they make especially when they wear their shoes late at night. Who konws what their problem is. I just want out of there as soon as possible.

I know rents are coming down because I've seen apartments that are bigger than mine for rent costing as much as my building was charging in 2000, and my building always prices themselves below the market. I saw two bedrooms apartments for the price of a one bedroom, in nice neighborhoods, with prices from 2000.

I've only been apartment hunting since last week, and I've already seen people having to lower their prices on their rentals. There is no one out there who can afford these prices anymore. I'm looking at a place on Friday, where the landlord had to lower the price by $50. I've never seen that happen in San Francisco ever. I've seen For Rent signs on some buildings for months, probably because and landlord is too greedy and doesn't want to lower the price. Some landlords are offering the first month free and other perks. The apartment above me sat empty for three months, which is extraordinary, since my landlord charges rents below the market rates.

Now I bet you're thinking, why didn't I move upstairs? Well, because the last two families who lived up above me had carpet and I never heard them. There wasn't a reason to move. Now I've got totally rude chick from hell living upstairs from me without carpet, and believe me, it's shocking and eye opening to hear how thin walls are between our apartments. There was a family of four who used to live above me, and I didn't even know they were up there, and that there were so many of them. I didn't find out until they moved out, and I was amazed that I never heard the two kids or the parents. I wish the family were still there. There were good neighbours. But from all the websites on housing and insulation I've been reading, there are a ton of rude people out there who don't care they they disturb their neighbours. I've just been spoiled I guess, by caring and polite upstairs neighbours over the years, and I miss them.

My drummer friend guy called me last night and had this totally wild story to tell. My rock star drummer friend is a gas. His claim to fame is he was the one time drummer for the group Kansas, when they went on tour to Europe. My friend K did the the total rock star thing with Kansas and, according to him, slept with tons of groupies and was a total dog with them. Who knows if his stories are true, but we've been friends for a long time and he's the sweetest guy. When we go to the movies, dinner, anywhere, he always pays and if I was in trouble, I know I could call him and he would come running.

Anyway, so K calls me last night and says he just got done dating this woman who used to be married to some executive at that huge computer company in San Jose, the one that starts with a C, the company whose tag line is "the worldwide leader in networking for the internet". I don't want to mention the company name, so I can't get in trouble.

Anyway, K meets this woman on Craig's List personals, and the woman is totally wealthy, lives on the Peninsula and knows all the 49ers. She's in sales and makes about $400K a year. The woman tells him that the exec at C Systems, whom she was married to for 24 years, was totally abusive to her.

Then K says that she spent about $10K on the party he was throwing, which I totally forgot about and didn't attend. She also bought all this stuff for his house. They dated for about 4 months, but she was a mess and bipolar because she was in that totally abusive marriage with the exec from C Systems.

And I'm like thinking, some rich executive ex-wife trolling on Craig's List Personals for dates? That's wild, if it's true. But then it's K, and you can never tell with him whether he could be exagerrating or just making stuff up. I'm so tempted to go to the C Systems website to find out the name of the executive, since K said he was up at the site in the executive bios. I mean, is this juicy gossip or what? The woman was apparently some kind of frustrated sexual maniac as well, although sweet and generous and totally bipolar. K said he even went with her to pick her kid up at some ex 49er football player house.

Part of me thinks no way would a woman like this go out with my friend K, because he's not that cute. Then I feel bad for thinking that, because K is just not that attractive to me but he probably is to a ton of women. He's an ex rock star drummer for god's sake. That has so much pull with women, including with me. And like I said, the guy is a total sweetie, he's very engaging and charming, smart, and totally generous. He's way too skinny for my taste, but some women like that. He kind of looks like Jerry Seinfeld, only he's not jewish.

I wonder if his story is true. I wish I'd gone to this party now so I could have seen her, but I totally forgot about it. K was kind of mad at me for not showing up, and not calling to excuse myself, but he said he's over it now.

K is a good friend, but who knows if I can believe his dating stories. The stories are highly entertaining and if he is making them up, I am so jealous of his great imagination.

This is scary. I received a letter from the Republican National Committee. Isn't that funny? The RNC sending a letter to someone, who lives in the most left wing whacko city in the world. What are these guys thinking? Okay, I'll confess my neighbourhood is about 30% republican, and yes during the 2000 presidential election there were a number of houses with Bush/Cheney signs up.

But I'm so not republican. I'm a registered democrat, and have been since I was old enough to vote. What are these people thinking? I was born and grew up in the only state that voted for McGovern in 1972. Come on. Okay, Hawaii does have a republican governor, but she's a woman, she used to work for the Teamster's Union, and she supports a woman's right to an abortion. Since the state has been in the economic toilet since 1997, I can see the voters wanting a change. Nothing moves voters to switch sides more than a bad economic climate.

Of course, she won every island except mine Kauai, but the island has always bucked the state trends.

Now I'm like thinking, how the hell did the RNC get my address? What republican mailing list am I on? And it's not like this is the first time either. They sent me a similar letter during the 1992 presidential election, and I was living in a different apartment back then.

I hate that my name and address are out there in some database, which could say what? Swing voter? Fits the demographic for people who might want to give money to the RNC, even though lives in the most democratic city in the country? Fits republican party income levels? Fits republican voting patterns, spending patterns, reading patterns, theatre going patterns, movie viewing patterns? What? What does the RNC have on me, that makes them even remotely think I would ever give money to them? What?

Either the RNC has something legitimate on me, or they better hire some temps to clear out their bad databases, or hire a DBA to fix their databases, or stop buying those worthless mailing lists that has the names of people who would never ever give money to them.